Lifehacker: When it comes to productivity hacks, there are two things I love: the tried-and-true classics, like the Pomodoro method, and shaking them up with a few customizations. I've written before about other ways to mold Pomodoro to match what you need, but today's idea, Pomodoro 2.0, is one of the easiest and most effective adaptations.
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Being productive once you are already productive is easy to do. The hard part is starting to be productive. Finding “hacks” like this can make any unappealing task easier to do as it makes it “new and exciting”. Doing the same thing day in, day out is hard to look forward to. This is one of the exciting things about theatre or any creative career essentially because even though as a technical director you always manage and produce shows each month of every year, the shows vary. Each process is unique, and similarities can be drawn but it is rarely the same. Finding a process that will make unappetizing tasks doable is a great start to being productive. Although finding a way to “eat the frog” is great to get your tasks done, if you are always having to eat the frog, it might be time for a change. Finding your niche is important and will probably change many times over your lifetime
I found it quite interesting about the idea of “ a state of deep work”. I’m asking myself how I define the state of deep work. The answer is probably like being doing work without or with slight distraction. It’s not like a state of deep sleep, you will need a period of time to get into the status. For some people like me, maybe the first 15 minutes can only be my state of deep work. So no matter how much time I will be adding for myself, it can only make it more and more difficult to focus on the work. Potentially, Pomodoro 2.0 is only suit the type or people who is already realized they are long-term working person. I also summarized from my own experience about the importance of the promise of rewards. If I say to myself that I can rest 10 minutes after doing 30-minute work but don’t fulfill the promise, it will make it challenging for myself to focus on work even within 30 minutes.
I have horrible focus and get restless really easily. I do actually use the Pomodoro method, but I didn’t realize that's what it was called. I use an app called Bear Focus Timer, and it sets up all those timers for you, but the best part is it's a little bear, and he gets mad at you if you pick up your phone. Adding increasingly more time to your sessions makes sense, the only thing I wonder though is if it defeats the purpose of having breaks. If the point of short work times is to make the task seem less daunting, wouldn’t increasing the time be counteractive? Overall, I think it depends on the type of task. If it’s math homework, or something else that’s already split into chunks, I think taking a break after x number of problems is fine. But if it’s a loner term task, like an essay or project, it’s harder to quantify where those “chunks” are, and you could benefit from a “deep focus”.
The Pomodoro technique is one that I personally use all the time. I have found that it works very well at motivating me to get my work done. However, as this article points out, it has a major drawback. The "locked in" time, as I like to think of it, is pretty short, coming in at only 25 minutes. What I have ended up doing is going for longer times, usually about an hour to get into the flow, and then I take a 10 minute break. But I really like this versions incremental amount of locked in time where you start small and work your way up before getting a big break. I think I might just try this "Pomodoro 2.0" today.
I am someone who procrastinated to a horrible degree, so seeing things that might increase my productivity is always good. Like most people, the hardest part of any project is just sitting down to start it rather than trying to squeeze out every ounce of spare time or relaxation I have and then trying to cram it all into one night of not sleeping. I was awful about this in high school and undergrad, but have gotten a little bit better as time has gone on. I find that it is much easier to be productive on actual production work rather than homework, which has always been true. At nights when I was younger, I would volunteer to go into the scene shop for build rather than doing the homework I knew was due the next day. This was a double edged sword though, because it put me in a position where today I still don't see production as actually working but homework has become more of a drag to do. With many projects due at the end of this semester, I will definitely be trying out this method and see if it works for me.
I’ve never heard of the Pomodoro method in the first place, so this was pretty cool to learn about. We live in a world of ever-growing demand for efficiency and productivity, and I certainly agree that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by certain projects. It can be so difficult even just to get a project started. Something like the Pomodoro method sounds almost too easy to be practical or even real, but it’s obviously effective. It seems like the big difference between the traditional Pomodoro method and the Pomodoro 2.0 suggested here is that it’s much more flexible; it allows you to take on bigger challenges without being interrupted, but it still maintains a schedule of regular breaks. I think it’s most important for people to realize, though, that all of these methods are just suggestions, and at the end of the day they can work however they want or need to be as efficient as possible.
I love a good study hack. In high school I used the Pomodoro method a few times but found it was not for me as I would always take a couple of minutes to get locked in to my work and then would never have enough time to get the work I was supposed to be working on underway before my next break. Although I have fond memories or playing rounds of centipede in between my 25 minute study sessions in retrospect that was not the most efficient use of my time. Now that I am older and much better at time management I find the good old 60 minutes on 10 minutes off or 80/10 split to work the best for me. As much as I admire what the Pomodoro method tried to achieve by breaking up tasks into bite sized pieces the pieces were to small and the breaks only got me further off task. I am interested in attempting to add this dynamic Pomodoro method into my study sessions for my upcoming finals and see if it is of any help.
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